Archive | social media

European Parliament making a pig’s breakfast of new Copyright regulation package

By HAX on July 16, 2017 in Big Brother, Big Entertainment, Big Government, Big Media, Censorship, Civil rights, Copyright, EU, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Human rights, Intellectual Property, Link wars, social media

On 11 July, two Committees in the European Parliament voted on their Opinions on European Commission’s proposal for a Copyright Directive: the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE).

CULT decided to abandon all reason and propose measures that contradict existing law on monitoring of online content. They also contradict clear rulings from the highest court in the EU on internet filtering. And for the sake of being consistently bad, the Committee also supported ancillary copyright, a “link tax” that would make linking and quotation almost impossible on social media.

ITRE made a brave effort to fix the unfixable “censorship machine”, the upload filter proposed by the Commission. On the one hand, this demonstrates a willingness in the Parliament to resist the fundamentalism of the Commission’s proposal. On the other, it shows how impossible this task really is. Despite deleting the reference to “content recognition technologies”, ITRE has decided to keep the possibility of measures to prevent the availability of copyrighted works or “other subject matter” which may or may not be understood as supporting preventive filtering.

And there is more bad news in the linked text, below.

EDRi » Latest copyright votes: Filtering, blocking & half-baked compromises »

Suffocating free speech online, country by country

By HAX on July 12, 2017 in Big Brother, Big Data, Censorship, Civil rights, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Internet, social media

The trend of courts applying country-specific social media laws worldwide could radically change what is allowed to be on the internet, setting a troubling precedent. What happens to the global internet when countries with different cultures have sharply diverging definitions of what is acceptable online speech? What happens when one country’s idea of acceptable speech clashes with another’s idea of hate speech? Experts worry the biggest risk is that the whole internet will be forced to comport with the strictest legal limitations.

Wired: The World may be Headed for a Fragmented ‘Splinternet’ »

Consequences of Germanys social media censorship

By HAX on July 3, 2017 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil rights, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Germany, Human rights, Internet, social media

Even accepting that free speech ends where criminal law begins, that doesn’t justify fining the platforms. If people are posting “illegal” content, go after them for breaking the law. Don’t go after the tools they use. By putting massive liability risks on platforms, those platforms will almost certainly overcompensate and over censor to avoid any risk of liability. That means a tremendous amount of what should be protected speech gets silence, just because these companies don’t want to get fined. Even worse, the big platforms can maybe hire people to handle this. The littler platforms? They basically can’t risk operating in Germany any more. Berlin is a hotbed of startups, but this is going to seriously harm many of them.

Techdirt » Germany Officially Gives Up On Free Speech: Will Fine Internet Companies That Don’t Delete ‘Bad’ Speech »

UK: Go to prison – for a joke?

By HAX on July 3, 2017 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Human rights, Police state, social media

“Scottish comedian and YouTuber Markus Meechan, better known as Count Dankula, is facing a year in prison for recording and uploading a video where he taught his girlfriend’s pet dog how to “seig heil” on command. As Heat Street reported earlier this year the viral video did not amuse Scottish police, prompting his arrest.” (…)

“On Wednesday, Meechan posted an update about his case. “Legal aid application was rejected,” he posted on Twitter. ‘I’m fucked.'”

Heatstreet: Scottish YouTuber Who Faces Prison Over a Joke Can’t Get a Lawyer »

UN on freedom of expression online

By HAX on June 18, 2017 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil rights, Democracy, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Human rights, Internet, social media, UN

1. Digital access and net neutrality needed
2. Censorship and surveillance: No excuse for states and private actors to breach human rights
3. Freedom of expression must be preserved by states and private sector

EDRi: UN Rapporteur demands respect for freedom of expression online »

EU is undermining the rule of law: e-evidence

By HAX on June 16, 2017 in Big Brother, Civil rights, EU, Human rights, Internet, Law enforcement, Police state, Privacy, Rule of law, social media

In a similar way that the police cannot enter your home without a court warrant, they are not supposed to look into your private communications without permission, right? Not really.

The EU is working towards easing the access to e-evidence for law enforcement authorities. The plan of the European Commission is to propose new rules on sharing evidence and the possibility for the authorities to request e-evidence directly from technology companies. One of the proposed options is that police would be able to access data directly from the cloud-based services.

EDRi » Access to e-evidence: Inevitable sacrifice of our right to privacy? »

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